To every play there is a season, and Halloween is the perfect season for Shakespeare’s creepiest, witchiest play: The Tragedy of Macbeth. And so, tonight and tomorrow night at 8 p.m., The Vineyard Playhouse’s Shakespeare for the Masses project will offer a free, script-in-hand presentation of “the Scottish Play,” as actors superstitiously refer to it.
School Performance Day
The members of performing arts classes at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School will be participating in a performance day on Thursday, Oct. 30 from 8:15 to 11:15 a.m. at the high school. Parents and the public are invited to this concert.
If the word Hamlet makes you think, Mel Gibson; if you’ve heard of Othello but never seen it; if you know there are witches in Macbeth but aren’t sure what they do ... then the gang at The Vineyard Playhouse has a tempting offer for you: give them an evening and they’ll give you the Bard — free of charge.
Phyllis Vecchia will be holding a fall creative drama workshop for four-and-half to 10-year-olds at the Oak Bluffs School. Classes began yesterday and will be held weekly from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. Classes run through Dec. 4.
The workshop will begin with theatre warm-ups and puppet play, followed by character warm-ups, a story, costume dress-up and a performance. Each week a new folk tale or fairy tale is presented for the children to reenact into a creative drama piece. No former experience is necessary, just a desire to have fun and work in a team setting.
On Sunday, Sept. 28, there will be tryouts for two original one-act musicals about Vineyard history:
Nancy Luce, The Musical was originally produced in the summer of 2007 as part of Children’s Theatre Workshop summer program, with a book by Dana Anderson and music by Linda Berg.
An Island of Women, Life on the Vineyard, 1850-1852, written by E. St. John Villard, takes place at a time when much of the male population was at sea whaling. Philip Dietterich has written the music and lyrics.
Whether consuming or creating, Vineyarders are known for their enjoyment of the arts. On one side, the Island has a lot of galleries, artisans’ festivals and professional performances; on the other, there are classes and quality amateur opportunities for theatre, dance, music and fine arts. But it’s not common for the vocational and avocational processes to intertwine. Over the past two weeks at The Yard, choreographer Sarah Wilbur has masterminded just such an intertwining.